Friday, September 28, 2012

My Little Crafting Corner

It's always fun to see how others design a crafting space and storage solutions. Along with card making and crafty projects, I have to find ways to organize my supplies so that I can easily access them when needed.I have a portion of a bedroom as my crafting space, and I have used the bedroom drawers and a desk that were purchased years ago for my son.

When I started collecting the new PTI inks, I realized I needed a different system to store them. So I designed a small unit that sits under the white wall shelf unit and my husband made this for me. It will hold 25 ink pads. (Unfortunately, I'm almost at capacity now!! I'm going to have to re think this one!!)

When I first got my ink pads I wanted a quick and easy way to

identify them. I stamped the colour on the bottom of each pad.

I added a label to the edge of the lid. Each ink pad sits

in the shelf so that it is stored upside down. These labels

take all the guess work out of finding the right colour.

Here's a view of all of my ink storage. The wall unit houses my

inks from Close To My Heart (the first inks that I bought when I started

stamping) and a few Stampin'Up inks. The smaller unit that my

husband built sits underneath the wall unit for easy access.

My "stamping" area has a cutting pad and a pull out drawer. (This was originally my son's computer desk.) The drawer holds my paper cutter, Scor-board, acrylic blocks and a stamp cleaning pad.

More Drawers = More Storage

The set of drawers to the right of my desk have other items that I use every day. The drawers are rather deep for the type of items stored. I would love to have some of the units that have 2" deep drawers so that I could more easily store these items: Paper punches; border punches; extra ribbon; embroidery floss; Baker's Twine;

Jet Maxx Storage and Die Cutting Area

I bought 4 of these cube units when they were on sale at Micheal's.

The drawers under the Cuttlebug hold:

* All of my embossing folders and impression plates

* A few of the larger dies that don't fit into the box

* Extra paper die cuts

(I store them in some of the clear plastic boxes that the stamps come in)

* Stamps in CD and/or DVD cases (SU; Clear Dollar Stamps)

There are 3 empty drawers. I originally had planned on storing my PTI stamps in this unit, but found that I liked them close to my desk for easier access.

The drawers on the right side hold:

* Cuttlebug Plates, embossing pads, shims for my Cuttlebug

* Coaster board; magnetic sheets and tape; extra supplies

* Felt

The two boxes below the drawers hold:

* Christmas stamps and punches

* Christmas embellishments, papers and extra cards

On the side of the unit, 2 magnet sheets were adhered, so that I could store border dies. I also find that when I'm die cutting small pieces (letters/ numbers etc) I will pop them onto the top edge of the magnet sheets to store them in a safe place until I'm ready to put them back into their pouches. So far I haven't lost or misplaced any dies, so it's one thing that really works for me!!

Main Die Storage

This is my third attempt at finding a storage solution for my PTI dies. I took a box and cut it down to allow access to the 'pouches'. I covered the box in a vinyl adhesive to give it some additional stability. As you can see, it is getting very full. I have some Spellbinder dies at the back of the box, so I may move them out to one of the smaller drawers to free up space - I have a "few" more dies on their way to me from my latest PTI order!!

Orignally I stored my dies in these photo albums, by mounting them on card stock and adding a bit of magnetic tape. However, before long this system was not working - I had several binders and never seemed to be able to find what I wanted.

I didn't want to re-do all of the work for each of these pages, so I found that I could adapt the photo album pages to my new system. The pages were top loading, so I closed the top off (sewing or scor-tape works) and them slit an opening so that I could remove the card stock/die from the same side as the punched holes.

Each page is labelled with the appropriate die

and then filed into the box in various categories.

If you look back at the
box of dies, you can see the colour coded labels

and how they are
stored. This makes it very easy to find what I need.

I also created an inventory of all of my dies using the same categories. (see the outline of these, with a few examples, at the bottom of this post)

I can take this list to my desk and check out what might work
for my project, then go back to the storage box and quickly pull out my
die. When I get a new die I hand print the name of it into the
appropriate category. At some point I will probably update this on the
computer.

Closet and Shelf Storage

I store paper, magazines, scrapbooks, my Cricut, envelopes, Close To My Heart Stamps and other odds and ends in the closet.

Papertrey Ink Card Stock

12" x 12" Paper Storage

This post has been very long; if you're still with me .... thanks for visiting!!!If you have any questions about the various items I described, you can leave a comment below or e-mail me for further explanation. Have a Great Day! Karen C.

Your space looks really functional. I especially like the die system you have. What a great way to store and organize your dies! I have been searching and thinking for a year or two and this would work so well for me. Thank you for sharing your pictures and showing us your space and how you organize your supplies. I am now going to find all the things to convert my PTI dies to your system! So smart.

About Me

After teaching for 31 years, I retired in order to spend more time travelling, gardening and crafting!! I have always loved to sew and knit, but after I left teaching I decided it was time to organize all of the family pictures into scrapbooks. I haven't gotten too far on that project, as I started taking card making classes at the local scrap booking store and then became fascinated with stamping... now I can be 'lost' in my crafty room for hours at a time!! I have two grown sons and a very understanding and supportive husband.